


Quo Vadis

by Donna_Immaculata, ElDiablito_SF



Series: The Fabulous Adventures in Immortality of the Vampire Aramis and the Man Who Named the Mountain, Volume IV [5]
Category: Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF, Les Trois Mousquetaires | The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Ancient Rome, Canonical Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-08 17:55:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6867403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donna_Immaculata/pseuds/Donna_Immaculata, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tragic love story of Hadrian and Antinous, as retold by Athos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quo Vadis

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Anniversary! One year ago we published the very first installment of Immortality AU. And now - we're here!
> 
> If you are Audience, then you know what you're getting yourself into and proceed!
> 
> If you happened to accidentally come here because you like Hadrian/Antinous and you do not realize you've wandered into the 4th Volume of Immortality AU - you will be very confused. Some warnings then: be forewarned for "underaged" sex (implied), irresponsible behavior, and death of a historical person (your guess is as good as mine as whom I could possibly mean).

_Animula, vagula, blandula_  
_Hospes comesque corporis_  
_Quae nunc abibis in loca_  
_Pallidula, rigida, nudula,_  
_Nec, ut soles, dabis iocos…_

Roving amiable little soul,  
Body's companion and guest,  
Now descending to places  
Colourless, rigid, and bare  
Your usual joys no more shall be there…

          - A poem composed by Hadrian shortly before his death

 

**Claudiopolis, Bithynia, 123 AD**

I cannot tell you how long Ares kept me prisoner on my own Mount, for time mattered naught to him and very little to me. He had torn me from the place where I had seen Alexander again, where I had once more seen Achilles and Patroclus, who, contrary to what Homer wrote, was not silent, but rather spoke words to me that, with the waters of Lethe, took away all memory of pain. It was as if eight hundred years had never separated us for their touch and their visages were just as dear to me.

I still remember the look on Achilles’ face when he realized that we were once again being torn asunder. “Fight them!” he had beseeched me.

But I could not, nor could I answer him. I only let go of his hand and let the waters of the Styx reclaim me.

In Hades’ realm, Ares and Eris could never touch me. Oh, how that galled them!

He came to me every night, and every day I healed, as Prometheus had regrown his liver, so that at night my vulture could come upon me again with renewed vigor. He had been man and beast, he had been a mixture of both, his touch both unhinged and elated me. After a while, he chose to unchain me, I wasn’t going anywhere. He had a lesson to teach me and it was one I was more than willing to learn. It is easy, after all, to give your body without giving your heart. He made me stronger. He made me harder. I never did learn to hate him properly. Probably because I never learned the right words for what we did, for what we were.

He made me harder, for a time. And then - he let me go.

I had come to Bithynia from Judea, where a few years earlier I had asked Pontius Pilate to free a rebel-rouser named Yeshua Barabbas (they leave that part out, you know, that they were both named ‘Jesus’). Rome’s new emperor had a pacifist agenda that was almost as inclusive as Alexander’s own, minus all the conquering and the warmongering. In fact, Hadrian had been a well-known Hellenophile, and ridiculed for it by some. He was a scholar as much he was a military leader, a builder more than a destroyer, and he ruled more by administration than by assassination. It was almost entirely unbecoming in a Roman. And yet, he _was_ becoming. A Roman Emperor who loved my motherland and my gods as much as I once did: he intrigued me.

I had heard of his arrival in Claudiopolis and hurried to catch a glimpse of this fabled monarch, the Spaniard who now ruled Rome. He was in his late forties, and carried himself with the assured air of a man who had nothing to prove. He came upon his provinces with an extended hand with which he would have lifted up the common man and made him feel part of the great Roman commonwealth. He came thus to the province of Bithynia, and his eyes fixed upon me in the crowd as if he had been waiting for me his whole life.

He showed me his plans for the Pantheon in Rome and I agreed that at times there really was a divine symmetry in the world, and if you stood still and listened carefully, sometimes it did indeed reveal itself to you.

“You speak our language well,” the Emperor had complimented me.

“I learned it in Judea,” I replied.

“It would be useful to have you travel in my retinue,” Hadrian suggested, his gaze landing upon me warmly and I caught myself holding my breath. It wasn’t me he wanted, it was what I had represented. The Achaean ideal. He did not know why, but he could sense it in me, my divine provenance. “I am on a mission of peace,” he had said, and a hidden smile twitched in the corner of my mouth. My own personal Fury, the goddess of contradiction. My mother’s name had been Eirene - she had been named after the Goddess of Peace.

What would Ares think?

“I will come with you,” I replied. “But…” Hadrian’s eyebrow lifted. “I have a friend,” I smiled at the latest ruler of the world. “A very dear, young friend. I am responsible for his education.”

“Bring him with you,” the Emperor waved his hand as if it had been the merest trifles. He did not know. He had not yet met Antinous.

Antinous had been barely fourteen when we had left Bithynia, and yet, more than half his life had been behind him. He had been a stray flower I plucked on the road, the son of merchant whose wife had passed away, who did not see it in himself to care for what was left of his brood. He had been a child, but I had seen potential in him, as you sometimes can in those rare individuals who may not be extraordinary themselves but are fated for extraordinary destinies. Such was my Bithynian road flower. With his thick, black curls and his tanned brown skin, always so hot to the touch that it almost burned you, and his eyes that wilted like petals when you kissed his luscious lips.

“Why should we go with him? He’s old!” my young eromenos whined as I bid him pack.

“He is the Emperor, you foolish caterpillar. Don’t you want to be part of the Emperor’s retinue?” From across the room, my Grigori cast a quiver-full of looks of disapproval my way. “There is much you can still learn from him.”

“Something that you cannot teach me, erastes?” Antinous had playful eyes, but they could also be devastatingly soulful when he turned them upon you in a certain way. I made a note of that for future use.

“You must not call me that in front of Hadrian.”

“Why not?”

“Because, it is imperative that he like you.”

“Why should I care if he likes me?”

“Because the more he likes you, the more he will appreciate _me_ ,” I responded, tapping him on his perfect little nose, and the Grigori cleared his throat motioning to me with his impertinent head.

“Kyrios, the boy is a little young for the kind of thing you have in mind, yes?”

“I went to Troy when I was his age,” I retorted.

“Kyrios misremembers,” the gnat bowed obsequiously, “with all due respect.”

“Close enough.”

The gnat made a neutral noise of Olympian disobedience.

“Humans spoil early, Grigori. How many more years do you think I have to whore him out to Hadrian before he becomes obsolete?”

“Why must you whore him out at all? He is delightful and much attached to you.”

“Because I learned my lesson, gnat! Look at him!” Behind the sheer, linen curtain, the Bithynian boy was gathering what little possessions he had into a satchel. “I can read the years left upon his brow. He is destined for an early death, so let his life count for something. I can make him immortal.”

“The same way you made Alexander immortal?”

I slapped the impudent guardian across his mouth.

“I will not die of a broken heart again, Grigori! I have killed a god in Judea, they say, and here in Bithynia, I am going to make a new god.”

The guardian bowed and was about to depart on his way, preparing our sparse possessions for yet another journey - along the road that led perpetually to nowhere.

“Don’t worry,” I added, “I will wait for the right moment. He’s not ready yet.”

There was still quite a bit more that I needed to teach the boy, before he became a suitable mate for true royalty. I supposed there was no harm to continue enjoying him, in the meantime. The wild Bithynian flower would smell just as fragrantly to Hadrian even after having had his share of my cock in him.

***

**Rome, 127 AD**

My caterpillar had blossomed into a beautiful butterfly, but still lay curled at my feet as I contemplated the mosaic above my bed. It depicted the hunt of the Calydonian boar. Hadrian loved to hunt, and it saddened me that I could not tell him more about that famous adventure. That beast would certainly had been brought to heel quicker, and not required such an auspicious roster of hunters, if only the men had not been so distracted by Atlanta and their pointless squabbles over whether it was dishonorable to hunt alongside a woman. I had no objection to her presence, personally, especially since she seemed to have no interest in touching anyone’s cock (much to Meleager's disappointment).

Antinous’ fingers played with my knee cap, pushing it in and out of the socket, until I flexed my leg and ruined his little game.

“What’s on your mind, Domine?” he asked, fingers skating over the inside of my thigh. “You’re awfully quiet these days.”

“Atlanta,” I had responded, my eyes tracing the curve of her bow in the elaborate mosaic. Up on the wall, the boar raged against the world, wounded and betrayed.

“Surely not,” my young beloved laughed. “I know you, Athos, and women do not preoccupy you in the least. Not even the fair proxy of Diana.”

“Artemis,” I corrected him and he rolled his eyes.

“Diana/Artemis. Rome/Greece. The gods are the same wherever you go, isn’t that what you told me? It isn’t the name you invoke that is important so much as what you invoke them for.”

“My fuzzy little caterpillar,” I smiled and let my fingers rest against his chin. “You really have become a beautiful butterfly.”

“Or a moth,” he wrinkled his nose and tried to catch my fingers into his mouth. I pulled my hand away.

“You’re much too fond of sunlight, Tinou, to ever be mistaken for a furry, grey moth.”

“But they’re drawn to the flame,” he grinned and his teeth pressed into my shin bone, while his eyes kindled with that playful, intelligent fire. He was ready. I had made him ready.

“You have to go to him,” I said, resolved to hide my thoughts from my young lover no longer. “The Emperor, he admires you.”

Antinous scowled and pushed my leg away.

“He desires you,” I continued. “He is a great man. Do you not desire him?”

“If you love Hadrian so much, why don’t you go to his bed yourself!”

He turned from me and I crawled up behind him, kissing his tanned shoulder. His flesh burned hot against my lips, it always did, as if he had been sired by the Phoebus Apollo himself.

“I am too old for Hadrian,” I whispered against his skin.

“That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard you say,” the Bithynian brat glared at me. “How can you be too old? You don’t age!”

“Of course I do,” I protested, my face flushing crimson despite my best efforts.

“Oh, teacher,” his arms wrapped around my neck and his thick head of curls tucked itself against my ear. “You’ve always told me that what you loved most about me was that I was smarter than the other boys. I have eyes, do I not?”

“Beautiful eyes, Tinou, but you don’t have a frame of reference,” I attempted a feeble protest. “Love blinds you.”

“You are not like the other men.”

“Neither is Hadrian.”

“Fuck Hadrian!”

“Now you’re getting the idea.”

He pushed me away, leaving the tangled sheets behind, and the warm afterglow of his embrace. His hand reached for his discarded chiton, and reluctantly I watched him dress.

“You can hate me if it makes it easier,” I muttered, averting my eyes. “But I suspect you’ll thank me later.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want me to go to the Emperor? Can you just tell me _that_? You don’t care about wealth or power. You follow Hadrian out of sincerest attachment and for no political gain. You want me to let him fuck me? Fine. But tell me the reason!”

My mouth froze mid-sigh. In the back of my mind I felt Ares’ amber gaze upon me. Was I Love’s bitch?

“What’s more important to you, Athos? That I fuck Hadrian or that I stop fucking _you_?”

I had already built a cage around my heart. Perhaps it had been time to look Medusa in the face and turn it to stone.

“Fine. You’re right,” I said. “I am in love with Hadrian. There. Is that what you wanted to hear? I love him, and he wants you, now _go_ to him and cease this childish whining!”

“You’re lying!”

“How dare you!” I shot off the bed and grabbed him by the hair as Ares had loved to grab me. “I rescued you from a life in the slums. Who knows how many others would have made a whore of you long before now had I not come along? I clothed you and fed you, I made sure you had the finest education a Roman could buy, and all I ask of you in return is that you take the most powerful man in the world as your lover! And you refuse me _that_ , you little ingrate?!”

_Whose bitch are you?_

“Forgive me, Domine.”

I let go of his hair. I could not take another moment of that shameful scene and I burned with hatred for myself. I wished that I could smite myself for my own words.

“He is a good man, Antinous,” I spoke, softly, for fear of betraying myself. “He will be good to you, because he is a good man. And I... am not.”

***

**Athens, 128 AD**

I did not want to return to Greece, not yet, but sooner or later I knew that Hadrian would insist that I accompany him there. My Emperor had sickened and I did not wish to leave his side, knowing that human years were precious and few.

Antinous came with us. They were inseparable by then - my plan worked better than I could have hoped. Better than I _did_ hope, for if I were to be entirely honest with myself, I did not want them to love each other quite that much.

“He needs me much more than you ever did,” the Bithynian _kouros_ said to me on a particularly hot summer evening, back in Rome. “But you don’t need anyone, do you? You are incapable of love. You’re not even human.”

“I regret having ever caused you pain, Tinou,” I had replied. What more could I have said to him? The Fates would cut their thread soon enough. I thought, back then, the world would be the loser for having no more Antinous in it to make it slightly more beautiful, slightly more bearable.

But without Hadrian - oh, without _Hadrian_! - I feared the world might descend into darkness. Hadrian was one of the last edifices of Hellenic culture and light. There wouldn’t be many more after him. Only Julian and then - Christianity and the Dark Ages. If I had known what was coming, I would have told Pilate to set the carpenter free and let them crucify Barabbas.

The crowds were gathering at Kerameikos for the procession to Eleusis. The worshippers of Persephone and Demeter would be initiated into the sacred mysteries soon, among the hallowed halls of the Telesterion. I would not go with them; I had no need to join in secret cabal with the Ancient Gods. I had seen Persephone in the flesh in the fields of Elysium. They had sought a way to triumph over death, Hadrian and Antinous, while I stood next to them the entire time: the resurrected god, the immortal, the cup of life.

“Are you sure you will not come?” Antinous apparated behind me. He had always been light on his feet, even as he got older and broader.

“The Eleusinian Mysteries are not for me, caterpillar.”

He shook his head at the silly nickname of yore that would seem nonsensical to anyone who would have looked at him as he was then. He had grown into a magnificent creature; those statues do not flatter him. But he was no marble imitation, he was alive, and overflowing with life. There had always been a sincerity to his touch that could not be faked, a thirst for knowledge and a hunger for pleasure. _Gods_ , he was painfully beautiful.

“You do not need kykeon to talk to the Gods,” Antinous said, softly.

“I don’t know what you mean, Tinou.”

“I have seen you do it.”

“That is impossible, little one.”

“You say it is impossible because I could not see whom you were speaking with, but there was someone there, and they answered you. You were not speaking to yourself.”

“You do realize how insane you sound, don’t you?”

“Have it your way,” he turned to walk away from me, but paused in the doorway. “You will ask them to cure Hadrian, won’t you? They will listen to you if you ask.”

“Sweet Antinous,” I sighed, “How poorly you know the gods! Be grateful. You should not seek to know them.”

That had been the first time he had asked me to save Hadrian. He would ask me again.

***

  
**Libya, September 130 AD**

The gods are not, by their nature, cruel. They play with mortals the same way that a child would rip off the wings of a butterfly or tear off the tail of a lizard. They merely want to see what happens next. They do not always understand why the lizard slithers away to live another day while the butterfly withers and dies.

Being initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries had a profound effect on my caterpillar. Seemingly impossibly, his devotion to our Emperor grew and set even deeper roots. For several days after the celebrations, Hadrian’s illness appeared to let go of its hold on him, but it had been merely a temporary reprieve. Resigned, the Emperor continued his journey. He had his good days, for which he thanked the Gods, and his bad days for which he did not curse them. Antinous spent every night in his tent, neither oblivious nor deaf to the mutterings of others.

By the time we reached Libya, he had been more man than boy, yet he was more Hadrian’s consort than the Emperor’s wife Sabina ever had been. The month of September was still hot on the African continent and the sun could be merciless. I did not know how Hadrian bore up under the strain of his persistent travels, the inconstancies of weather, and the ceaseless buzz of the sycophants surrounding him. I did not understand how he could carry such a burden on his shoulders, of his entire Empire, and still have a smile and a kind word for anyone at the end of the day. Perhaps he knew that after each sunset, the tent flap would open, Antinous would slip in, and it would close and leave the rest of the world out there where it could no longer touch them.

The locals had spoken of a lion ravaging the countryside in Libya. Slaughtering the livestock, terrifying the populace, like any self-respecting King of the Beasts might. Hadrian would not stomach sharing his rule with a large cat, even if it carried the lofty moniker of the Marousian lion. I had mentioned, had I not, that Hadrian had loved a good hunt, and so I had been put in charge of organizing the hunting party to bring down this Marousian menace.

We had tracked the beast to its lair. The King of the Jungle wasn’t going to surrender his crown so easily, his eyes proclaimed. His maw gaped wide and his back undulated like the lithe body of the Hydra. With a single paw, this magnificent hell-cat could bring a horse to its knees, not to mention ripping a man’s face off. We may have had the beast cornered, but he was by no means defenseless.

Was it youthful hubris or the desire to prove himself a man, who could tell, all I know is that before I could aim my bow, Antinous broke rank and set his steed upon the beast with his spear held aloft in his arm. He had been well trained, my Tinou, and his aim had been true, but the weapon glided along the beast’s ribs, serving not to kill but to wound and enrage him further. One flash of the deadly claws, and the caterpillar’s horse fell gutted under his weight. Another moment and the Gods would have claimed their new Ganymede right then and there, had two arrows not sped through the air, each one lodging in the attacking lion’s throat. The beast fell and I looked over my shoulder to see who had shot the other arrow: it had been the Emperor.

Hadrian had seen me too. Neither of us spoke a word, but a look of recognition passed between us. He had leapt from the saddle with the agility of a much younger man to come to Antinous’ aid, while I walked up to the beast with my sword drawn to make sure it had indeed been dead. I pulled my arrow from the quarry’s neck and threw it off into the brush, leaving only the Emperor’s arrow sunken into the flesh of the vanquished.

My Grigori found me in a whorehouse that night.

“Kyrios, a summons from the Emperor.”

“Right now?”

“As you can see, Kyrios.”

I pulled the youth who had been sucking my cock with the gusto of a professional off of me and threw the coins down with a sigh. I was sincerely hoping Hadrian was going to compensate me for this latest coitus interruptus. I had attached myself to Hadrian with my entire heart, but my dick had needs too, especially after I had given him my best fucktoy in ages.

“Fucking Hadrian,” I muttered, walking towards the Emperor’s tent, “Does he think he has achieved Divus status already? That hunt was the most killing I’ve done in years, Grigori,” I went on, “My war muscles are atrophying. Does he want my dick to atrophy too?”

“I’m sure the Goddess Mother wouldn’t mind if it did,” the Olympian nuisance retorted.

“One of these days, I am going to cut out your tongue, you know.”

“Yes, Kyrios.”

“Good, just so we’re clear.”

I scratched at the entrance to the tent. The flap opened and Antinous pulled me inside.

“Hadrian sent for me?” I asked, eyeing my former lover up and down suspiciously.

“He never had a chance to thank you,” the caterpillar said, quietly. “And neither did I.”

“Could this have waited until morning?” I frowned, but then Antinous pushed me further, beyond the gossamer curtain, where Hadrian lay in a glorious state of undress, bathed in the glow of soft candlelight. “My Emperor,” I knelt.

“Athos,” my name on his lips sounded mellifluous. It was more of a caress than a sound. It sent shivers down my spine. “You saved my beloved and you let me take all the credit for it.”

“Not I, my lord. Your own arrow brought down the beast.”

“You have always been generous, my friend,” Hadrian’s hand caressed my face and his fingers ran through my messy hair, smoothing the unruly curls down. “Generous to a fault, one could say.”

“There is no generosity sufficient to express the love of one’s Emperor,” I replied, keeping my eyes lowered.

“Nevertheless,” Hadrian said, “it appears that we both now owe you Antinous’ life. Such a noble gesture is worthy of the gods themselves.” I tried to protest but Hadrian pressed two fingers against my lips. “I hope that you accept… our gratitude.”

I looked from the Emperor to the _kouros_ , feeling at a loss for words. What was Hadrian offering me? And if I took it, would there really be no repercussions? As if reading my mind, Antinous pulled me up to my feet and began to peel off the various layers of my attire, unwrapping my toga as if I was an onion and he was afraid to cry as I shed my layers.

“Tinou, what are you doing?” I whispered in his ear as he pressed up against me. Over his shoulder, I saw Hadrian shift and take a slow sip of his wine. His eyes were upon us and they smoldered.

Antinous’ own clothes were long shed and his skin burned under my touch, that old, familiar fever. He kissed me, not like a boy, but like a man who knew what he wanted. I let my hands travel up his torso, to the broad expanse of his chest, and over his clavicles, all the way up to his neck. I could feel the barely-there prickles along his skin, noting with my fingertips that he must have been shaving his chest. How long had he been doing that, I wondered. How much longer would he be able to get away with it?

“Do you still think you’re too old for him?” the Emperor’s beloved whispered and pulled me towards the bed. I fell against the pillows and Antinous crawled in after me, his body sliding in between mine and Hadrian’s, curving lithely like the caterpillar of yore.

Hadrian pressed something into my hand and I glanced down to see it was a vial of oil. I stared at the place where his fingers had pressed against mine and then I reached out and touched him. That face, that face that history would preserve as well as the face of his beloved. The noble, intelligent brow, beset by deep thought-lines that reminded me of Odysseus, the warm eyes, the soft, tight curls around his temples, that venerable beard. I let my fingers trace over Hadrian’s features with the awe of a child who had grown up fatherless. He too was mortal, this Caesar, and there was nothing I could do about it.

“Get him ready,” the Emperor said and squeezed my hand again where it still clasped the vial.

I tore my eyes away from Hadrian and redirected them to the boy who had once been mine. His smile was guileless and he stretched out in my lap like a very amenable cat. I ran my hands down his back, into the curve at the base of his spine where his skin still sprouted up tufts of soft fur. My caterpillar. I spread his cheeks with my hands, imagining they were his butterfly wings, his thighs fell apart, and Hadrian’s appreciative gaze settled in between them. I poured the oil into his cleft and massaged it in with my fingers, slowly spreading him open. He was looser now, his flesh yielded easily to my touch. Hadrian may have struggled with his illness, but he clearly was not a man to allow a night to go unseized. Antinous moaned and grew hard against my naked thigh. No, a little caterpillar no longer.

Hadrian’s hands moved over his beloved’s thighs with ease, holding him down, raising him up, pulling him close until the Emperor’s cock sank into the mystery surely more holy to him than whatever kykeon-induced visions he had at the Telesterion. I watched with bated breath. Love wasn’t forbidden to them. It would not kill them. They could do with each other as they pleased.

  
Soft moans caressed my ear and then Antinous’ hands dug into my knees again and Hadrian had called my name. I stirred from my dream of them and found them both still very physically present. I could smell their arousal, the beads of sweat on Antinous’ brow adorned him like a crown of pearls, he opened his mouth and beckoned me with the pink tip of his tongue. For a few moments, I was content to let our tongues intertwine as I felt the push of him against my body, Hadrian’s hips slamming into him with a well-rehearsed rhythm.

I had forgiven the Emperor entirely for tearing me away from the whorehouse that night. I would have been satisfied just to watch, but they had other plans for me, it seemed. Before long, Hadrian’s own hand was guiding my cock towards Antinous mouth, those lush, gorgeous lips closed over my overheated flesh, and I grabbed on to his thick curls for purchase, fucking into his throat with the same vigor that the Emperor had been plowing his ass. It had been a long time since I had availed myself of the pleasures Antinous could bring. He had gotten better; the love of his Emperor had made him better. I laughed despite myself and found Hadrian laughing back at me, and then his mouth was on mine, our beards caught on each other, and his hands clutched at the back of my skull. I spilled my seed down Antinous’ throat and swallowed Hadrian’s cry of ecstasy as his own climax washed over him.

I snuck out of their tent like a thief in the night, hastily wrapped into the folds of my toga. My limbs were heavy and sluggish. My mind was inflamed and feverish.

It was just fucking. They were just bodies. Their souls were fodder for the Boatman, that was all. I could not care what happened to them, I could not afford to care.

“Save him,” I stopped in my tracks, pulled back by the sleepy, hoarse voice of Antinous. “Can you do nothing to save him?”

“I don’t know what powers you think I have, Tinou, but I assure you…”

“You saved _me_ ,” he interrupted me. “Why did you save me if he is going to die?”

“It was reflex,” I responded, steeling my heart.

“You made me love him. And now I also owe him my life. What am I supposed to do, Athos?”

“Live,” I said. “Love each other. What does any of this have to do with me?”

“How can I live when he is dying?” his voice trembled. “My life is forfeit without him. What use have I of any of this,” he motioned to his body, “if Hadrian is gone?”

“You think you know all that life has to offer, Tinou, because you have been loved by the ruler of the world. But there is so much more on this earth – to see, to experience.”

“My life for his!” he dropped to his knees and clutched at the folds of my toga. “Your gods are powerful. Your gods can do that!”

“For Hades’ sakes! Get up!” I pulled him from his knees for fear that someone might see us. The hour was late, but sometimes an owl was not truly an owl. “Do not invoke the gods, Antinous. Do not offer them your life. They do not deserve you!”

“They made you immortal, they can heal Hadrian!”

“Be quiet, you little idiot!” I shoved him into my tent before anyone else could spot us. “What do you think you know about me?”

“I was your lover long enough to understand at least part of your secret, Athos.” Even in the darkness of my tent, I could still see the pouted curve of his lower lip and a part of me still yearned to feel it press against me, to kiss him as if I could keep him. “You have not aged a day since we met. I have seen you go for days without eating. I have seen you heal from wounds that should have been fatal.” He dropped to his knees again and pressed his lips to the hem of my toga.

“Rise! Rise, I am not a god, and you don’t need to genuflect to me!”

“Save him!”

“Antinous! I would if I could!”

He would not rise, so I sank to the ground next to him and wiped his tears away with my thumbs. I meant what I had said, I would if I could. I would find a way. There had to be a way.

***

**Egypt, October 130 AD**

The Nile had not flooded, its shallow waters a mockery to the denizens of Egypt. The Emperor’s barge had moved along the banks, carefully, quietly, so as not to offend the sacred river by its passing. Hadrian had not stopped, he would spread his Hellenic beliefs to the furthest outreaches of his empire. He wanted to unite all the distant Roman citizens beneath the domed cupola of his Pantheon. Of the Olympian Panhellenic Pantheon.

“We’ll take him,” Apollo had said to me before we left Libya. “Really, he’s quite breathtaking. Give him to us.”

“Father says Ganymede isn’t really what he used to be,” Ares laughed, “if you catch my drift, which I think you do.”

“Give us the Bithynian boy and we’ll make your Emperor well again,” Apollo continued. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

I felt outnumbered. What was I supposed to do against the Gods of War and Plague?

“You know it yourself, his days are numbered,” Apollo would not relent, and I thought of how Hyacinthus died. Apollo never relented. “We can use a new cup bearer.” The God of Prophecy snickered and behind him Ares’ eyes lit up in a familiar amber fire.

“Let Hadrian die,” Ares intoned. “What use have I of an Emperor who refuses to make war?”

“That’s a very narrow point of view,” I found my tongue again. “Who knows who would succeed him. Olympus is thriving under Hadrian. What if the next Emperor falls in with the Cult of the Nazarene?”

“I care very little for the Jews,” Ares responded, “Unless of course we’re killing them. When can we kill them again?”

“Ares, you’re not helping,” Apollo chimed in silver tones. “Sacrifice the boy, Athos. We will restore Hadrian to health.”

My brothers had gone, but the unpleasant feeling remained. What would be the use of giving Antinous to the Gods if he and Hadrian could not be united in the afterlife. I knew very well that while the Romans played their own deification games, the so-called _Divi_ did not ascend to Olympus as some people would have you believe. To separate them from each other forever? No, I could not do that. Some things really were far worse than death.

Aboard the Emperor’s barge, I stood alone and gazed up into the starry night sky. Selene’s face was in the new phase and she shone brightly, her silver threads spilling over the placid waters of the Nile. Elsewhere the Fates were busy measuring out gilded thread. Atropos was getting ready to cut one, I was certain of it. _Let it not be Hadrian!_ I implored silently into the night. _Gods of the Nile, who are as powerful as the Gods of Olympus_ , I thought, _hear my prayer. Let Hadrian live a few years more! A few more years, that’s all I ask. He can do so much with such a short period of time for he is not like other men!_

“Greetings to you, son of Olympus,” the waters answered and parted before my stupefied gaze. Towering before the boat stood a man, but not a man. In truth, he was nothing like the gods I had been accustomed to seeing before. His skin had been green, his legs bound up as if he had been a mummy newly escaped from his tomb, he wore a towering head-dress adorned with ostentatious ostrich feathers, and his hands clutched mysterious implements of his power - the crook and the flail. By my estimation, he was about twenty feet tall. His mouth alone, when it moved, threatened to swallow the winds. “My name is Osiris,” the divine being spoke and I at last came to my senses enough to kneel before the Egyptian god. “What do you call yourself?”

“My name is Athos, I am a son of Zeus,” I responded with reverence.

“We have heard of Zeus,” the Egyptian God of the Underworld responded. “Have you heard of Osiris over there, on your Oros Olympus?”

I was at a loss. I did not wish to speak for Olympus, instead I replied for myself.

“You are the almighty god of rebirth and resurrection,” I spoke, “you are the one who controls the floods and sits in benevolent judgment over the souls of the departed.”

“Not always benevolent,” the green-skinned god responded and his enormous mouth folded into a crescent of a smile. “Tell me, Athos son of Zeus, why should I save your Emperor?”

“He does not seek the destruction of Egyptian gods,” I spoke quickly. “He has nothing but respect for your power and history. And he would treat your people with the same care and courtesy he shows each Roman citizen.”

“And in return for a few more years of this Hadrian’s life, you would give me the Emperor’s beloved?” Osiris had bent over the barge, his obsidian eyes boring into my soul.

“He would sacrifice himself willingly,” I spoke, licking my parched lips. “But I do not wish to separate them forever, oh Great Osiris. You to whom death is but a transition, tell me, how can I be sure that you would not separate them in the afterlife if I give you Antinous here?”

“You too have been resurrected, not unlike me,” Osiris smiled again, “the scent of your own ashes clings to you, Athos son of Zeus. You have known great suffering.” For a moment he was silent. “So have I.”

He too had suffered at the hands of his own brother, so the Egyptian sages told. It had been his brother Set who had buried him alive and then tore his body into pieces, making it so difficult for the Goddess Isis to gather her beloved husband back. But she did. Love had resurrected him. War had resurrected me.

“Death is but a transition between this world and the next,” Osiris spoke. “I control the universal gateways. I can make sure that your Emperor and his beloved are reborn together again. I cannot guarantee whether it will be in this world or another, but I can promise you to reunite them.”

I wanted to trust him. I also wanted to deny Olympus their desired prize.

“The Nile shall have him,” I swore. “Save Hadrian!”

***

The Nile shall have him, I had resolved. But what of Hadrian? The Emperor would be inconsolable, that much I could foresee. Would he go as far as Alexander, who tried deifying his Hephaistion, only to fail as my old lover had failed? Or would he succeed because Hadrian, unlike Alexander, would have help? I would not leave him. I would stay with him and guide him through his grief, for grief was an old, familiar friend to me.

And if such grief were to erupt in anger, as it often does, and cause a war? So much the better then. My Olympian brothers would surely gnash their teeth at my pact with the gods of Egypt. Ares, as he had eloquently reminded me several times, was fond of his canine aspects. So like the dog he was, I would throw him this bone while ripping their would-be Ganymede out of the eagle’s lustful claws. As for Apollo, I smirked, watching the murky waters of the Nile, he is the God of Prophecy – he should see this coming!

I had given them several more nights together, telling myself it was a kindness, telling myself the time wasn’t right. I sought excuses for myself for delaying the consummation of the treacherous deed, having lost track of whom I would be betraying, for certainly it would not be Antinous himself. He had asked for this, after all - his life for Hadrian’s.

The festival of Osiris was drawing to a close and the green-skinned deity lay in wait for me to complete the sacrificial rites. The moon goddess had hidden her face, unwilling to shed her benevolent glow upon the darkness of my soul. And Antinous, drunk and disheveled, stumbled onto my path as if summoned by the singing of the sirens themselves. I caught him in my arms and he laughed, his fingers running through my hair and pulling at the short tendrils the same way he did when he was just a boy.

“My Domine,” he whispered, “have I served you well?”

“You’re drunk,” I stated, smelling the acerbic scent of alcohol on his breath. “I have never known you for being so immoderate.”

“You have also never known me so in need of inebriation,” he slurred and his fingers trailed down the curve of my cheek. “Will you have me again, Domine, when my Emperor is gone?” he asked and his lower lip trembled.

“I will save the Emperor,” I whispered, attempting to pick him up and convey us both further down the bank where darkness wrapped her arms around us like a satin shawl, hiding us from prying eyes. “You asked me to save him, remember?”

He stumbled again. He fell. His fingers wrapped around my ankle. His touch scalded me like a brand.

“Antinous!” I bent over him. My wild Bithynian flower, let me pluck you from the ground one last time.

He was laughing. The horrifying laughter of a condemned man.

“You promise me? He will be well?”

“Yes, I promise you. I did as you asked. I spoke to the Gods.” I pulled him up by his long arms, his legs still had clumps of sand clinging to them. I thought of what it had felt like once to have those legs wrapped around me.

“And you will not leave him?”

“For as long as I can.”

“Tell me you will not leave him!”

“Hush.” I pressed my lips to his, in part to shut him up, in part because I could not let him walk through death’s door without stealing one last kiss. He clung to my lips with his teeth and his nails dug into my sides as he tried not to stumble. My own feet slipped in the cold waters of the Nile. “Come with me, Antinous.”

How unfair it was of me to rob Hadrian of the honor of being the last living creature to kiss those lips, to touch that burning hot skin!

“Yes, Domine.”

Another step, and another, until we both stood knee-deep in the shallow waters. He shivered in the humid autumn heat that still hung over the Nile like a canopy and stifled the air. Out in the reeds, a toad croaked with its impatient voice for me to get on with it. I pulled the Bithynian boy into my arms and held him pressed against me.

“Hadrian will make you a god,” I whispered into his hair. “He will never forget you, you know that, don’t you, Tinou?”

I kissed the shell of his ear and ran my fingers through his thick curls where they clung to the soft nape of his neck. A sacrifice worthy of the gods. Hadrian would be restored; Hadrian would go on living. It was worth it, I told myself, it had to be.

“Will you tell him something for me,” his lips moved against my cheek. “Will you tell him I did this because I love him? Tell him no one could ever love me the way he loved me.”

“You will be reunited with him again,” I whispered as something cold and slippery brushed against my calf. _Give him to us_ , the water beckoned, impatiently.

“With the gods on Olympus?” he asked, laughter in his voice.

“Olympus isn’t so great,” I replied with another caress. “You will go to a much better place.” If death was but a transition, as Osiris insisted, wherever Antinous ended up would be better than what he would be on Olympus. There, on my Father’s Mount, if you weren’t a god, then you were a slave to the gods. I would not have him be enslaved by anyone, ever, if I could help it.

I kissed his eyelids. He kept his eyes closed after that. I lay his body against my own as I floated out on my back between the banks of the sacred river. I pressed my forearm against his windpipe and then I lowered us both under the water. His hair fanned out like the dark algae of my native Aegean over my face. I held his body until I was certain that it was all over and then his eyes flew open. I like to think that he felt no pain.

I came up for air, staring into the black, moonless sky. I screamed. It did not matter; no one would hear me but the gods that night.

Was Ophelia as lovely when they had found her drowned by morn? I do not know. Ophelia, after all the Bard had to say about her, was not real. But Antinous had been. He had been real, and he had been loved. Love made him immortal. Love had preserved his face for posterity. After all, you know very well, love is much more powerful than death.

Hadrian had lived for another eight years. I had remained by his side for five of those years. I was not with him when he finally died. I never told him how Antinous really drowned.

Seventeen hundred years later, I still wonder if ever I should see them again in this world. Or if Osiris had kept his promise and reunited them in another world, a parallel one, one better than the one you and I live in.

Had it been worth it, Aramis? Even now, I am still not sure. But do not glare that way at the statues of the Bithynian-boy-turned-Divus which we shall doubtlessly see in Italy. He did not deserve your scorn. And he certainly does not warrant your jealousy.


End file.
